Cute mini carp-streamer sets are hanging at the eaves of shops on the first floor and basement first floor of the Palaceside Building. Please look at them at lunchtime. They were put up by the Palaceside Building Meitinkai (chair Hiroaki Okada of Tearoom Hana).
According to Okada, it has been a regular for some ten years. Last year, though, the first state of emergency forced them to give it up. They once handed out kashiwa-mochi and irises as a courtesy, but that is impossible now from an infection-control standpoint as well.
Indoors they cannot swim “higher than the roof,” as the children’s song goes, but their upward faces still suggest carp climbing a waterfall with spirit. Watching them quietly, I felt as if a fresh May wind were blowing.